Golden isn't good enough

'Find yourself here" is the motto for this year's official Visit California campaign. The idea: There's lots to see and do here; lots of places to visit and lots of scenery to explore.

'Find yourself here" is the motto for this year's official Visit California campaign. The idea: There's lots to see and do here; lots of places to visit and lots of scenery to explore.

Except if you're a lawmaker. In November, you weren't going to find 17 of them in the state.

The Sacramento Bee reported this week that 17 legislators slipped off to Maui in November for one of two public policy conferences.

They were bankrolled by a nonprofit group - the California Independent Voter Project - that provided up to $2,800 each for lawmakers to attend for three or four days at a tony resort that describes itself as a "luxurious haven in one of the most scenic places on Earth."

Apparently in the vast state of California, there are no such havens.

We don't know who actually was behind all this public policy jawing, since the group doesn't identify its donors except that the nonprofit group, which is led in part by former Democratic legislator Steve Peace, is backed by a smattering of business, labor and other interest groups.

How nice.

Also nice, at least for lawmakers, and their unidentified benefactors is the fact that nobody had to disclose what was going on for months. Those months ended Friday, the legal disclosure deadline.

One thing that was nice, one supposes, was that all this schmoozing was bipartisan. At least five Republicans were among the 17 known to have attended. Isn't it reassuring to know they can fight publicly, but when no was looking, they were probably rubbing suntan lotion on each other's backs?

Still, wouldn't it have been nice that if our elected officials were going to talk behind our backs, they'd at least have enriched a resort somewhere in California?

We're pretty sure a scenic, "luxurious haven" can be found somewhere in the state.